Fruit Tree
Hannibal HNCD 5402 (1992)

Album available as:-
(Hannibal HNCD 5402)

It's five years since Drake took an overdose in the bedroom of his parents home and finally opted out of a world he found impossible to handle on even the simplest level. This box set brings together the three albums he recorded for Island with four tracks put down near the end when his vulnerability had got past the point of melancholy and had become a crippling disease.
Five Leaves Left, recorded with Joe Boyd and John Wood in 1970, is the work of a young, over-educated, middle class boy, besotted with the idea of arcane romance and the cult of literay personality somehow contriving through an act of pure will to fashion an album of arresting consistency and purpose, a work that begins to add up halfway through side one and has you hypnotised by the beinning of the second side.

When you consider the number of gifted people that Joe Boyd has worked with, his claim that Bryter Layter, the second album, is the finest piece of work he has ever been associated with must give some pause for thought. It is the least stark of the three; revelling in sympathetic contributions from the likes of Richard Thompson and John Cale and graced by beautiful string settings from Robert Kirby, a friend from Cambridge, this is the most approachable vinyl he has ever presented, flowing imperceptibly and without artifice.

By 1972 and Pink Moon he was saying to friends, "All the defences are gone. All the nerves are exposed," and this stark, unadorned confessional reflects his desperation. Recorded with just his guitar and John Wood for company over two evening sessions it defines the essence of his imagination better than its predecessors.
Tacked on the end we have Voice From The Mountain, Rider On The Wheel, Black Eyed Dog and Hanging On A Star, the quartet of songs that he laid down and then scrapped before going in to psychiatric hospital.

By the end he could hardly bring himself to talk to anyone. He couldn't understand his lack of commercial success, but any degree of fame would have probably tipped him right over the edge. Most songwriters use their sadness but with Nick Drake it was the sadness that used him and even music as rare and honest as this is never worth such tragedies.

- David Hepworth, 1979.

Track Listing:

Five Leaves Left

1. Time Has Told Me (Drake) - 4:27
Interpretation by Tony Reif.
2. River Man (Drake) - 4:21
Music review by Iain Cameron.
3. Three Hours (Drake) - 6:16
Joe Boyd's comments.
4. Way to Blue (Drake) - 3:11
5. Day Is Done (Drake) - 2:29
6. Cello Song (Drake) - 4:49
7. The Thoughts of Mary Jane (Drake) - 3:22
8. Man in a Shed (Drake) - 3:55
9. Fruit Tree (Drake) - 4:50
10. Saturday Sun (Drake) - 4:03

Bryter Layter

1. Introduction (Drake) - 1:33
2. Hazey Jane II (Drake) - 3:46
3. At the Chime of a City Clock (Drake) - 4:47
Music review by Iain Cameron.
4. One of These Things First (Drake) - 4:52
5. Hazey Jane I (Drake) - 4:31
6. Bryter Layter (Drake) - 3:24
7. Fly (Drake) - 3:00
8. Poor Boy (Drake) - 6:09
Music review by Iain Cameron.
9. Northern Sky (Drake) - 3:47
20. Sunday (Drake) - 3:42

Pinkmoon

1. Pink Moon (Drake) - 2:06
2. Place to Be (Drake) - 2:44
3. Road (Drake) - 2:02
4. Which Will (Drake) - 2:59
5. Horn (Drake) - 1:23
6. Things Behind the Sun (Drake) - 3:56
7. Know (Drake) - 2:27
8. Parasite (Drake) - 3:36
9. Ride (Drake) - 3:05
10. Harvest Breed (Drake) - 1:38
11. From the Morning (Drake) - 2:31

Time Of No Reply

1. Time of No Reply (Drake) - 2:52
2. I Was Made to Love Magic - 3:08
3. Joey (Drake) - 3:04
4. Clothes of Sand (Drake) - 2:32
5. Man in a Shed (Drake) - 3:02
6. Mayfair (Drake) - 2:28
7. Fly (Drake) - 3:35
8. The Thoughts of Mary Jane (Drake) - 3:42
9. Been Smoking Too Long (Frederick) - 2:13
10. Strange Meeting II (Drake) - 3:32
11. Rider on the Wheel (Drake) - 2:30
12. Black Eyed Dog (Drake) - 3:20
13. Hanging on a Star (Drake) - 2:42
14. Voice from the Mountain (Drake) - 3:40

Nick Drake - Guitar, Vocals, Piano
Dave Peg - Bass
Dave Mattacks - Drums
Richard Thompson - Lead Guitar
John Cale - Celeste, Piano, Organ
Ray Warleigh - Alto Saxophone
Chris McGregor - Piano
Pat Arnold - Backing Vocals
Doris Troy - Backing Vocals
Danny Thompson - Double Bass
Rocki Dzidzornu - Congos
Clare Lowter - Cello
Paul Harris - Piano
Trsitam Fry - Drums, Vibraphone